Azamat,
>You are raising intriguing
questions regarding meaning and processible ontologies. I hope my short
contribution will make the picture clearer.
Thanks for the kind words. From what
you wrote signs we may share some ideas from the semiotics realm and connecting
this to what you called “ontological linguistics”, - a new phrase for me, but if
its subject matter is “ontological grammar, syntax, and real valued semantics)
this sounds like the issues that the development of such things as OWL struggle
although you might have to spell out what you mean by and real valued semantics.
AA>In the ontological language,
real meaning is fixed as the semantic values of signs, determined by the
entities and relationships in the real world.
Are you talking about relating signs
to the set-theoretic (logical) aspect of an ontology? That is using signs in the ontology
construction as a formal logical
system composed of its objects-primitives, classes, individuals, and properties,
logical syntax (notation techniques, formation and transformation rules), and
formal semantics (model theory), such as the OWL is doing?
Another way of speaking about this
is to imagine using “sign meaning”
to develop a “meaningful” primitives Entity, Thing etc. the kinds of objects
with fundamental definitions, axioms and those “real-world semantics” you
mentioned. This allows a common interpretation by
humans and systems of the ontological theory and its truth conditions in the
world of things, entities, or beings.
BTW, given that we
want to discuss signs and symbols our ontology will include concepts like
“contentbearing objects: such as in the small taxonomic part shown below (just
to connect to the linguistic part of ontology)
•
Entity
Physical
Object
ContentBearingObject
Icon
SymbolicString
LinguisticExpression
WrittenLinguisticExpression
Text
Sentence
Phrase
Word
Morpheme
Regards,
Gary Berg-Cross
-----Original Message-----
From: azamat
abdoullaev [mailto:abdoul@cytanet.com.cy]
Sent: Mon 3/21/2005 4:11
PM
To: Gary Berg-Cross
Cc:
standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Subject: Re: Idealism vs
Materialism : Idealism and the Differentiating Element
Dear Gary,
You are raising intriguing questions regarding
meaning and processible ontologies. I hope my short contribution will make the
picture clearer.
To have correct understanding of knowledge,
meaning ought to be viewed as a meaning relation between signs (symbols,
words or ideas, thoughts) and things in the real world. Any relation by
nature is two-sided or bi-directional (from signs to things as well as form
things to signs). The ontological perspective comes out here as most
fundamental; for it is mapping the real structures to the sign structures
(which include conceptual structures). This is the subject matter of
ontological linguistics (ontological grammar, syntax, and real valued
semantics), which shouldn't be mixed with its complement, linguistic ontology.
In the ontological language, real meaning is fixed as the semantic values of
signs, determined by the entities and relationships in the real world.
Once the sign structures with their associations in a certain domain
knowledge are sorted out as truly conforming to the ontological
structures, you can enjoy a machine-processible
ontology.
The second issue is inherently connected with the
successful resolution of the first one.
Materialism-Idealism distinction is the result of
an innate tendency of the human mind to all sorts of dichotomy and duality.
This opposite division is a bad heritage of classic metaphysics, born by
the confused polarity of all things as abstract, ideal realities (froms,
ideas) and material, physical realities. The practice of modern science
is inclined to deny as the only reality either ideas or matter, where
one exists as subordinate to another. The task of general formal ontology
is to view the abstract entities and the concrete things as two
parts of one real world, as two distinct domains of reality, the universe
of matter and the universe of mind, somehow interrelated to each
other. And the concepts of mind and matter should be synthesized not
within materialism or idealism but rather within a general ontological theory
encompassing both parts as distinct levels within an all-comprehensive
hierarchy of things.
After all, to comprehend the general rules,
principles, and mechanisms of such relationships
(ideality-actuality) is the challenging undertaking for all who
signed up for ontology classes.
Regards,
Azamat Abdoullaev
EIS Intelligent Systems LTD
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday, March 21, 2005 4:35
PM
Subject: RE: Idealism vs Materialism :
Idealism and the Differentiating Element
This discussion, along with
Re: nature -> "human brain" -> "language terms" ==>> knowledge
?,
has wandered
over considerable ground but a question was raised along
the way about “how then we should model meaning?.”
One issue was can
"knowledge" ("reality" yes, but not "knowledge") exist independently of the
brain?
A simple counter
question occurred to me, “if such knowledge can[t be defined how why are
trying to build processable ontologies ? Isn’t that a
endeavor to capture meaning outside of the brain?
John Sowa covered this
in passing, noting that our computer applications include “knowledge”
JS> First,
knowledge is certainly codifiable in a way that
solves a great many
problems. Every program ever written
does that, and there are an
enormous number of very
successful ones. But each of those programs
solves a
particular special case. The problem we face is
to
relate those special cases by general principles.
JS>And that is
where the difficulties lie.
Peirce’s distinction between REAL and TRUE may be helpful to some of
us in ontological community discussion with an aim to
building up usable knowledge .
Perice
"The real, then, is that which, sooner or later,
information and reasoning would finally result in, and which is therefore
independent of the vagaries of me and you. Thus, the very
origin of the conception of reality shows that this conception essentially
involves the notion of a community, without definite limits, and capable of
a definite increase of knowledge" (CP 5.311).
To elaborate further this is now he addressed the distinction between
opinions on the true, and the real in "How to Make Our
Ideas Clear ":
"The
opinion which is fated to be ultimately agreed to by all who investigate, is
what we mean by the truth, and the object represented in this opinion is the
real. That is the way I would explain reality" (CP 5.407). ….
Peirce continues later with
"reality
is independent, not necessarily of thought in general, but only of what you
or I or any finite number of men may think about it," ….(that), "though the
object of the final opinion depends on what that opinion is, yet what that
opinion is does not depend on what you or I or any man thinks" (CP
5.408). underlining is mine for emphasis
Which brings me, at
least, back to John’s opinion that he accuracy of any
scientific hypothesis
JS> does not
depend
> on who or what discovered it or on any
methods of thinking,
> any techniques of problem
solving, or any apparatus that
JS> he, she, or it
might have used to arrive at the hypothesis.
I can understand this in
light of Peirce’ efforts to define clear thinking, which we need in Ontology
building.
To
conclude with yet another Peircian quote. Here’s one he
used on the path to a 3rd way between the realists and
idealist.
The
philosophical problem is to resolve two contradictory claims about the basis
of reality:
- the principal thesis
of realism - there is a reality that exists independently of our
representations of it or
- Idealism claim that what we perceive as
real dependent is upon our (usually expressed as
mental) representations of “it”.
As James Liszka observed the
clash of the two theses is nicely expressed in Peirce's "Consequences of the
Four Incapacities ":
"...there is no thing which is in-itself in the
sense of not being relative to the mind, though things which are relative to
the mind doubtless are, apart from the relation" (5.311).
Liszkae
called this 3rd way a discursive realism to distinguish it
from the later effort of Rorty or Foucault, in which
there is neither a privileged discourse, nor can any representational system
that can mirror a reality external to such a system -
what might be called the discursive idealism. Someone may
able to drawn up the realism to idealism continuum, which seems to be as
embedded in our discussions as the ontology
continuum.
Gary Berg-Cross
-----Original Message-----
From:
owner-standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG on behalf
of Chris Lofting
Sent: Sun 3/20/2005 6:45 AM
To: standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
Cc:
Subject: Idealism vs Materialism : Idealism and the
Differentiating Element
Hi Avril,
> -----Original
Message-----
> From:
owner-standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> [mailto:owner-standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG]On Behalf Of
> Avril Styrman
> Sent:
Sunday, 20 March 2005 4:08 AM
> To: Chris Lofting
> Cc:
standard-upper-ontology@LISTSERV.IEEE.ORG
> Subject: RE: nature
-> "human brain" -> "language terms" ==>> knowledge
>
?
>
>
> Dear Chris,
>
> please analyze
thoroughly the idealism-materialism debate with IDM,
> so that I
don't have to read any more books about it.
Jeeze, a *thorough*
analyse on this list!? Ummm.. lets keep it 'vague' for
the moment
in that since we are dealing with the Language of the Vague lets
start
'vague' through the use of differentiating and so a focus on
contrast.
The Oxford dictionary definition of differentiating
is:
"differentiate v.
1 distinguish, discriminate,
contradistinguish, separate, contrast, oppose,
set off or apart, tell
apart: They must learn how to differentiate one
species from
another.
2 modify, specialize, change, alter, transform, transmute,
convert, adapt,
adjust: All organisms possess the power to
differentiate special organs to
meet special needs."
What is not
clearly emphasised here, from a QUALITATIVE perspective, is
the
association of differentiation and of PUSHING AWAY others to assert
self or
some 'point'. As such there is a sense of 'clear
identification' and in that
identification a sense of EXAGGERATION of A
from ~A. (in our brains we can
see this difference between single
context thinking, associated with a
'fundamental' harmonic within which
play all of the others, and multi
context, 'mindless' processes where
there is little exaggeration of A from
all of its harmonics. See
comments and refs in
http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/general.html - as such one part
contains all of the POTENTIALS,
and the other part ACTUALISES one
perspective from the others, sets the
key if you like, the tone - what we
see here at the level of
consciousness is patterns of FM/AM processing where
the "A" of A/~A is
FM and so very clear, FM stereo but being so is LOCAL)
This process
of exaggeration IMPLIES a difference in energy utilisation
where to
'make the point' to differentiate A from ~A requires an increase
in
energy expenditure, be it for a millisecond or a millennium.
(thinking is
not free - our brains burn about 4 to 15 watts of power
overall - our bodies
are usually as 'bright' as a 60 to 75 watt light
bulb. as we think of 'new'
things so covalent/ionic bonds are
broken/established in the brain and so
generate
heat)
PHYSIOLOGICALLY, and so usually unconscious to our
experience, the increase
in energy reflects an increase in bandwidth to
'make the point' clear,
obvious, precise. This increase in bandwidth
will DECREASE the notion of
thermodynamic time, it will marginalise
time into something at most
mechanistic and at best 'forgotten' - time
becomes something slowable,
stoppable, even considered reversible. This
emphasis is due to the increase
bandwidth where we focus on NOW. As
such, time is felt as a sense of the
'eternal' - a STATIC focus emerges
that favours differentiation, to make a
'point', to assert A over ~A, I
need to 'freeze' it.
In our brains XOR-type thinking does this -
(see the page on paradox
processing - http://www.iimetro.com.au/~lofting/myweb/paradox.html) where a
'static' form is extracted from a complex
pattern - the problem in the
particular sensory 'paradox' examples is
that that form appears to share
space with another and that, in the
realm of XOR, is a no-no. So - given the
failure of bandwidth to sort
out the problem, to resolve the 'paradox', we
fall back on TIME to
resolve the issue, our brains 'oscillate' across the
elements expressed
in the 'paradox' as we try to reduce an irreducible.
The MAIN focus
here is on explicitly identifying the ONE over all else to a
degree we
over-exaggerate that 'point', to a degree we make it a universal
when
compared to all else. This focus is supposed to be temporary, LOCAL,
in
that once the point is made so all energy is reduced, we fall back
to our
more energy-conserving nature, our species-nature.
To
experience this referred-to subjective time distortion that can come
with
differentiating you need to speed yourself up. Play a mindless
shoot-em-up
computer game can do it, or go driving on the freeway and
then drive off the
freeway onto normal city streets. Check your comfort
level and your speed.
You will find that when sped up/down so your
sense of time has changed due
to the increase/decrease in energy
expenditure required as you control the
joystick/car etc. This change
will AFFECT your decisions and so thinking in
general - IOW it can
affect your reflections on reality such that the
FEELING of the
'eternal' is formalised into the 'reality' of the eternal,
the static,
and so unchanging.
As one refines skills, so one will habituate and
so any differentiating, any
mediation by consciousness, will disappear
to become instinct/habit or
packed into a symbol - a representation and
that can include 'instinctive'
recognition of the sense of the eternal
regardless of its 'truth' or not.
Note that the
XOR(differentiating) 'drive', being a focus on clarity
introduces the
notion of PRECISION - the differentiating attempts to replace
a current
perspective with a 'BETTER' one and as such there is a bias to
focus on
REPLACEMENT. I say this now since it will emerge later when mapped
to
its complement - COEXISTENCE.
In the context of differentiating,
and so a focus on mediation processes in
general, there is a mapping of
any act of DELAY with the presence of some
form of awareness (see
examples in J Libet's work (2004)"mind time"). This
delay is about 0.5
seconds in 'real time' overall and appears to reflect
MEDIATION
activity - once one has habituated to whatever one is mediating,
so the
delay disappears. As such, there is a relationship of
consciousness
dynamics, increased energy dynamics, and differentiating
overall (WITHIN
differentiating there is integrating but that area will
be covered later).
The mindless (or semi-aware) 'species-nature'
dynamic is where the ability
to go past a sensation, into its parts,
allows for refinement of any
responses to that sensation. As such,
stimulus/response gives way to
stimulus/considered_response that in
turn folds back into stimulus/response
but now with fine details, finer
levels of discrimination and so finer
choices in response.
In
addition to all of the above, a fundamental concept that appears to
come
out of exaggerated focus on consciousness is the concept of the
spiritual,
the transcendental, and neurologically there is a focus on
the delay factor
(sourced all the way down at the level of the neuron,
just not necessarily
'conscious') working as a tool for mediation and
for ESCAPE. As such, with
this focus on XOR-ing, differentiating,
pushing-away, comes the notion of
escape.
Escape comes in two
forms - the reactive where we back away from something
not caring where
we are going, only concerned with getting away from 'here',
and the
proactive, where we CHOOSE where to go, to escape to. Thus from
the
notion of escape comes the notion of FREEDOM and with that notion
comes a
focus on exploiting 'freedom' as well as 'protecting'
it.
Note that all of this 'cutting' done in differentiating,
freedom-seeking,
precision, will create borders - and what lives on
borders? Complexity/chaos
dynamics and so the concept of
emergence/transcendence/phase-transition etc
etc.... IOW we can detect
a link here of differentiating with the notion of
spiritual (regardless
of 'fact' or 'fiction') in the context of
transcendence (that focus on
'betterment' drives things - and so capitalism
is the 'best fit' of an
economic system to these processes, as democracy is
the 'best fit' as a
political system)
What is implied here? A property of
differentiating is the formation of
fundamentalist groups where the
natural fragmentation that comes with the
differentiating (recall all
of that complexity/chaos input to things) forces
isolationism. Combine
that with the differentiated form of the 'spiritual'
and these groups
can be religious or secular in their fundamentalism.
What else
emerges? The fragmentation, together with high energy expenditure
and a
focus on 'betterment', elicits competition and a focus
on
universalisation - the precision means EVERYTHING needs a label, but
since
there is so much, so UNIVERSALS are used - communication is more
along the
lines of using stereotyping etc. We see here a transition
from the 'organic'
but vague nature of the species to the 'mechanistic'
but precise nature of
the conscious species. With this concentration,
this distillation, of
species qualities in general into particular
individuals comes a focus on
each individual becoming a universal. This
ultimate form of fragmentation
focuses on self-autonomy, being
self-sufficient and so not dependent upon,
nor responsible for, anyone
else.
With this hugely competitive focus develops technology. That
technology
elicits data that reflects 'best practice' dynamics. Those
dynamics are
incorporated into each individual's general behaviour (iow
we all need to
adopt the latest in weapon systems etc to 'keep up').
From here we have
different outsides, SAME insides. What do we get with
this form of
structure? Phase transition; the individuals start to
group (at the
corporate level this is in monopolies and corporations
developing their own
perspectives of reality - they are now starting to
build their own schools,
pensioner resorts, and so promotion of the
corporation as its 'own little
world')
Can we see this sort of
behaviour in other life forms? Yes - flocking
behaviour where
individuals making LOCAL distinctions elicit a non-local
expression in
the behaviour of the collective. The difference is that in
phase
transition all the individuals start to 'think alike'.
Dominating
all of the above is a focus on clear identification
of
individual/collective - to an extreme of exaggerating that identity
and
associate it with some 'universal' sense of the 'spiritual' -
IOW
consciousness is considered 'originating'.
With this comes
fundamentalism, the 'religious right', and other
'specialist'
perspectives that can reflect elements of another property
of
over-differentiating - psychosis, where we disappear totally into
our own
'little world'. Note here that the strong focus on XOR-ing,
on
differentiating converts all meaning from a semantics position to
a
concentrated form of semantics we label as syntax - all that matters
is
one's location, one's position in the hierarchy (using logic
operators, the
XOR focus gives way to the IMP operator - the only
asymmetric operator in
the set of logic operators - and in our brains
the bias is asymmetric
overall)
Given all of the above, to which
would you associate differentiating/XOR?
more:
idealism /
, / n.
1 the practice of forming or following after
ideals, esp. unrealistically
(cf. realism).
2 the representation of
things in ideal or idealized form.
3 imaginative treatment.
4
Philos. any of various systems of thought in which the objects
of
knowledge are held to be in some way dependent on the activity of
mind (cf.
realism).
OR
materialism / / n.
1 a
tendency to consider material possessions and physical comfort to
be
more important than spiritual values.
2 Philos. a the opinion
that nothing exists but matter and its movements and
modifications. b
the doctrine that consciousness and will are wholly due to
material
agency.
3 Art a tendency to lay stress on the material aspect of
objects.
?
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